


By every trial tested

by zinjadu



Series: Wed to Blight [45]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Ambushes and Sneak Attacks, Archdemons (Dragon Age), Courage, F/M, Fade to Black, Haven (Dragon Age), Resilience, Romance, Trials, Warden Abilities, warden dreams
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-01 13:57:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20816297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zinjadu/pseuds/zinjadu
Summary: Nearly one year ago, Caitwyn Tabris woke up to get married.  It didn't go as planned, and every step of the way she had to tell herself she could do this.  It was all she could do.  Now, on the road to Haven, no matter how horrible and creepy things got, Caitwyn demonstrates just how far she's come.  From a scared, unsure Alienage kid, she's become a kickass Warden in her own right (with an adorable boyfriend).Note:Series is fully drafted!  No danger of an unfinished series.  Updates weekly on Sunday until the end.  Much love.  <3





	By every trial tested

_ Great eyes blink heavy and slow under the ground, but closer to the surface. Heavy and rotted, a weight in the earth, it claws up and up and up, until it can taste fire in the sky again. The long neck swivels, in her, through her, to the sun that lies behind her, the oil bubbles up from the ground and covers her skin. Oil that worms its way up her body, under her armor, into her. _

_ The maw opens, fire purple-black builds in its throat, and she is as frozen as a hare, and the song becomes a shriek— _

Bow in hand before she opened her eyes, Caitwyn flung herself out of the tent uncaring that she only wore a thin shirt against the chilly spring night. Heart in her mouth, Caitwyn sank into the shadows even as Alistair emerged from the tent. His hair stood on end, and he only wore his hastily done up breeches. But weapons in hand, no enemy in sight save shrieking shadows, he suddenly blazed like a newborn sun and bellowed into the night.

The darkspawn screamed and like they were driven, left the veil of shadows and stretched hungry claws for his unarmored skin. 

They ignored everyone else. Caitwyn fired arrow after arrow, never still for long, while Zevran, Sten, and Oghren waded into the fray. Maethor got his jaws around one thin leg and yanked one of the creatures off its feet and then closed his mouth around its throat with a wet crunch.

Leliana fired from her position across the camp, and Wynne’s mellow voice raised in a chant. Pale green light sprang up over Alistair’s skin, and the darkspawn claws scratched uselessly against the magical warding. The air cracked right next to Caitwyn’s ear, and iridescent purple light jaggedly cut its way to the darkspawn. Morrigan raised her voice again, but before she could level another strike, the darkspawn were hacked apart by every blade that could be brought to bear on them.

Heedless of her state of undress, of everyone’s state, Caitwyn stood and let the fire illuminate her. Alistair’s head swung her to her and a heavy puff of relief escaped him. 

The Archdemon could find them now, and once that would have set her running, blind and stumbling into the night. But now. Now.

“That’s a new trick,” she said quietly as they packed up the camp in an orderly fashion. They couldn’t stay here, but no headlong rush away this time. 

He shrugged. “If you can hide yourself, thought I could make myself very noticeable.”

“Well, it worked.” His crooked smile was his only reply. But now she was a Warden in truth, and she could do this.

* * *

Blood soaked Haven. Down to the very stones, and the copper tang hung in the air. On her tongue. 

They had only barely made it through the high passes to this forgotten village on the edge of nowhere. But this was no haven, not in any sense of the word. The villagers themselves were standoffish, just shy of hostile, and the children sang songs with an air of disquiet.

Caitwyn knelt by a door, Zevran next to her shoulder and Leliana opposite. Locks on doors in a village this remote had to be strange. Though she could never pass up anything locked, there was a rot at the heart of this place. And rot, she had learned, tended to find places to hide.

The tumblers in the lock clicked. With the mere nudge of her fingertips, she coaxed the door open. It swung inward, but a wall of stench met her. Bile rose in her throat, but she clicked her teeth shut and slunk inside. Zevran followed close on her heels, his lips thin and hard. Leliana’s pale face turned green, but she shut the door after them, closing them in with the pervasive smell of blood and bad meat and shit.

Like iron to a lodestone, Caitwyn’s gaze was drawn to the altar at the far end of the house. On it were finger bones, freshly flensed and still tacky. 

“Maker’s mercy,” Leliana breathed, hand clutching the pendant she wore.

“There is no mercy in any of this, my dear Leliana.” Zevran’s voice was tight, as if he spoke past a closed throat.

“Caitwyn, these people, they have turned their back on the Maker. We must—”

“I know,” she said quietly. How often had she seen this in the last year? Once, she had only thought her people the victims of those with power, but her world had been so small then. Only the walls she had known her whole life, the walls of Denerim, the walls of her mind. But there was more pain in the world than her own.

No longer turned in on herself, Caitwyn left the altar untouched—the dead should be allowed some rest—and strode up the hill to the desecrated place these people called a Chantry. This foul place ended today; that was what she could do.

* * *

The stone was cold under her bare feet, but the mountain’s frozen air didn’t chill her skin. Entranced by the shifting yellows and oranges of the fire, the world fell away. What had Shianni said? She’d left. Left it all behind, even if it had cracked her chest like ice working its way into stone.

But she had never set it down. Never forgotten, until she had almost drowned in it; the waves of memory had crashed over her head again and again and again. 

Caitwyn danced her fingers through the flames, and there was only the mildest sensation of warmth. The tongues of fire leapt up and flickered about her like capering puppies. Eager but harmless. Bright and crackling. 

That hadn’t been Shianni. That had been her, rebuking herself with Shianni’s face. Her cousin’s features used as a mask to obscure how the thoughts had been hers all along. From herself to herself, words that had circled her like a tempest for so long they had become a part of her.

Stripped bare, there was nothing to hide behind. All her scars stood on display. The scrapes on her feet from a childhood run barefoot. The puckered gash at her back from a genlock’s dagger. The cuts and divots on her hands from traps and mechanisms uncounted.

And the scar that had lain at the very heart of her, the core of her. Maybe not healed, but no longer festering. Scoured clean.

The fire didn’t burn.

It cleansed.

The dirt and grit of the mountain flaked away, along with the blood of the priest that had attacked them. What poor villagers, to be hounded by a dark vision of reality of their own making. To be trapped by the cruel confines of their own terrible picture of themselves.

And no one to show them anything different.

Glancing over her shoulder, Caitwyn cocked her head at her companions. Alistair’s jaw hung open in shock, while Leliana and Wynne alike held their hands to their mouths in awed astonishment. Caitwyn wiggled her fingers in the flames and rocked back and forth on her feet, lingering simply because she could.

“Come on, what’re you all waiting for? Fire’s just fine.” Her brow quirked up and her mouth curved in a fox’s grin. She really had done it.

* * *

In the grey darkness of the tent, a cold nose touched her shoulder and Caitwyn jerked awake. Maethor turned worried eyes on her, and she sat up with a sigh. Quickly, she undid the ties of the tent and let him out, to his bounding relief. It was barely morning, and they were still deep enough in the Frostbacks for the sun to take some time to rise. She closed up the tent once more and nuzzled close to Alistair’s broad back.

Unbidden, a grin curved her lips as her mind turned to merely yesterday. When they had slain the high dragon and Alistair had landed the killing blow. Maker, he had been magnificent, and she had  _ thrummed _ as he had raised the visor of his helm and smiled proudly and crookedly at her.

She’d shoved him up against a tree that night and, driven by something wilder and deeper than any fear she might have had, taken him in her mouth. It had been a minor miracle she’d waited until they were well past the mountain and the village when she’d pounced. He’d been aghast, though not for terribly long. Before long he’d turned into a panting, moaning mess. All because of her.

Maker, was she wanton now? No, surely not. They loved each other, and even if they weren’t married, they were together. She had no intention of letting him  _ go _ , that was certain, and she let her fingers wander downwards.

“Hmmm, Cait? What’re you doing?” His voice was muzzy from sleep, and he rolled over. She ducked under his arm and curled herself around him.

“Cuddling. I think that’d be obvious.”

“Well, yes, but um, you were rather, um, disappointed after last night.”

After he’d tried to return the favor and it had been one of the more awkward experiences for them both. She huffed. “Wasn’t disappointed—” His bland non-expression shouted his disbelief. “Alright, a little disappointed, but not  _ devastated _ . Not going to want to stop, um, being together.”

“That what this is? Being together?” His lips brushed her neck, her jaw, voice husky against her skin. She shivered, eyes fluttering closed and let herself go. 

Gently, he trailed his fingers along the curve of her ears, down the line of her throat and traced her collar bones. He might not know what to do with his mouth, but Maker he knew how to use his hands. Goosebumps rose on her skin as he caressed her, coaxing gasps and moans from her lips. 

“Alistair, Alistair,” she panted and forced her eyes open. He hummed, partly curious and partly inordinately pleased with himself. “I think, I mean.” She tugged at his shoulder, motioning him to not lay beside her but to—

From sly grin to earnestly furrowing his brow in half a heartbeat, he tucked a curly lock behind her ear. “Cait, we don’t have to.”

“I want to, we can do, I mean  _ I  _ can. Do this. Want to do this. With you.” She breathed deep, her lungs drinking in the stuffy air of the tent, permeated with the scent of  _ them _ . “I’m ready.”

“You say stop and I promise, that’s all you have to say. And you’ll say right? If.” Thumb stroking her cheek, he halted at the  _ if _ . If she panicked, if she was afraid, if it hurt. There was no way to know until they’d taken that step, so she couldn’t promise the same. Instead, she cupped his face in her hands and kissed him, the mere press of lips, and drew him down over her.

She didn’t need to tell herself she could.

**Author's Note:**

> For those who don't remember exactly (because oh god this series is too long and unwieldy), contains call backs to [By every measure ceded](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15735591) (the day of the failed wedding, yikes) and [Solitary, but not alone](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14812259) (escaping the Wilds and generally not having a good time at all). Two moments way back when, at the start of Caitwyn's journey.


End file.
